Material Science Methods for Reconstructing the History of Manuscripts

In two sessions, members and associates of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) in Hamburg present recent collaborative research by scientists from STEM subjects and scholars of the humanities that bridges the gap between humanities and the natural sciences and sheds new light on our understanding of medieval material culture, both within and beyond Europe. How can, for instance, ink and pigment analysis, DNA analysis and multispectral imaging help with the recovery of script, the dating and placing of manuscripts, and the understanding of practices of production and use of manuscripts? What new questions arise from these collaborations? What is the potential, what are the challenges of such fundamentally interdisciplinary research?

The research for this project was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy – EXC 2176 'Understanding Written Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures', project no. 390893796. The research was conducted within the scope of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg in collaboration with the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM).